Mobile terminals mainly include: a smart phone, a tablet (for example, Pads such as an iPad, and a Tablet PC), a mobile reading device (such as Amazon Kindle), and so on. The mobile terminals are limited by portability and therefore have a limited screen size. The screen sizes of mainstream mobile Internet devices are as follows: smart phone: 2.4-4 inches; tablet: 7-10 inches; and mobile reading device: 6-8 inches.
Inputting of a mobile terminal in the prior art is mainly performed through a physical keyboard and a virtual keyboard. Due to popularity of the large-sized touch screen and the requirement for decreasing the size of the mobile terminal and increasing portability, more and more mobile terminals display a virtual keyboard on the screen as a main mode of inputting information. The layout of the virtual keyboard on the screen includes a conventional numeric keyboard and a standard conventional keyboard (QWERTY keyboard), and a user may freely switch between the two layout modes. There are many keys on the QWERTY keyboard, and each key is small-sized. There are few keys on the conventional numeric keyboard, and each key is large-sized. Most English inputting adopts the QWERTY layout, while Chinese inputting adopts both the conventional numeric keyboard and the standard conventional keyboard according to user preferences.
When inputting is performed through a virtual keyboard, a mobile terminal is limited by portability and therefore does not have a large-sized touch screen. On the other hand, for ease of user input, the size of the virtual keyboard on the screen cannot be too small. The main weakness of using the virtual keyboard on the screen lies in that when inputting is performed, the virtual keyboard occupies a large screen area, which leads to that the viewable screen area is decreased greatly, and therefore, the display space is insufficient for inputting data through the keyboard on the screen and clearly displaying usable information.
To solve the above problems, the prior art uses the mode of a transparent virtual keyboard, as shown in FIG. 1. The inputting mode of the user is classified into two types according to different operation objects. If the operation object of the user is a virtual keyboard, the inputting mode is called a keyboard mode. If the operation object of the user is a layer below the virtual keyboard, for example, a text input box, the inputting mode is called a non-keyboard mode. The keyboard mode and the non-keyboard mode are implemented by clicking a switch button of the virtual keyboard mode or a hardware button.
By using the above modes, when the transparent virtual keyboard is displayed, if the user needs to frequently perform inputting on the virtual keyboard and operate a page, for example, the user fills a series of registration information, the user needs to switch between the two operations of the virtual keyboard in turn. However, the switching is implemented through a separate button or a status bar icon. As a result, the user needs to additionally click the button many times to switch between the virtual keyboard and the page, resulting in complexity of user interaction.